o had taken the place
of his dead father, prevented him from making any declaration.

This was how the matter stood when the ruling house of Bourbon, who
could not bear to see any benefit accruing to that of de Guise, decided
to step in and reap the profit themselves by marrying this heiress to
the Prince de Montpensier.

This project was pursued with such vigour that the parents of Mlle. de
Mezieres, despite the promises given to the Cardinal de Lorraine,
resolved to give her in marriage to the young Prince. The house of de
Guise was much displeased at this, but the Duc himself was overcome by
grief, and regarded this as an insupportable affront. In spite of
warnings from his uncles, the Cardinal and the Duc de Aumale--who did
not wish to stand in the way of something which they could not
prevent--he expressed himself with so much violence, even in the
presence of the Prince de Montpensier, that a mutual enmity arose
between them which lasted all their lives.

Mlle. de Mezieres, urged by her parents to marry the Prince, realised
that it was impossible for her to marry the Duc de Guise, and that if
she married his brother, the Duc de Maine, she would be in the
dangerous position of having as a brother-in-law a man whom she wished
was her husband; so she agreed finally to marry the Prince and begged
the Duc de Guise not to continue to place any obstacle in the way.

The marriage having taken place, the Prince de Montpensier took her off
to his estate of Champigny, which was where Princes of his family
usually lived, in order to remove her from Paris, where it seemed that
an outbreak of fighting was imminent: this great city being under
threat of siege by a Huguenot army led by the Prince de Conde, who had
once more declared war on the King.

The Prince de Montpensier had, when a very young man, formed a close
friendship with the Comte de Chabannes, a man considerably older than
himself and of exemplary character. The Comte in turn had been so much
influenced by the esteem and friendship of the Prince that he had
broken off influential connections which he had with the Prince de
Conde, and had declared for the Catholics; a change of sides which,
having no other foundation, was regarded with suspicion: so much so
that the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, on the declaration of war
by the Huguenots, proposed to have him imprisoned. The Prince de
Montpensier prevented this and carried him away to Champigny when he
wen